


The Trail

by moonlighten



Series: Pack Animal [2]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, M/M, Scottish Kingdoms (Hetalia: Axis Powers), Welsh Kingdoms (Hetalia: Axis Powers), Yr Hen Ogledd (Hetalia: Axis Powers)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 10:06:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1775218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonlighten/pseuds/moonlighten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwynedd stumbles across something unexpected in the woods.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Trail

**Author's Note:**

> Just been sorting through some stuff, and realised that I hadn't posted this, though I'd meant to months ago...

Gwynedd’s dreams are strange unsettled things, filled with dark shapes and wicked claws; ones which sink deep and wake him time and again throughout the dark watches of the night, panting to catch his breath with a sharp pain at his breast.  
  
He rises when dawn comes not because he feels rested, but because he cannot bear to spend a moment longer trapped in the suffocating skein his thrashing limbs have made of his bedclothes. The air is chill, he is more chilled still, and it takes near every grain of strength he possesses to make himself to break the ice that has formed over the basin of water set by his bed, and then the rest to strip down to his smallclothes and scrub away the fear sweat which has soaked his skin and hair.  
  
The bite of deeper cold helps to clear the grit from his eyes and lift the heavy, wooden feeling that had been weighing down his limbs, but it does nothing to quicken his tired mind.  
  
He redresses as fast as his shivering hands allow, but then finds himself reluctant to move further. Although his stomach is sour with hunger, and his body longs for the heat of the more substantial fire in his hall, he reluctantly concedes –  after he has stood at his chamber door, unmoving, for a span of time so vast that it shames him – that he does not desire the companionship he is bound to find there.  
  
The dull pain in his head increases at the mere idea of Gododdin’s weak attempts at jests, the rough scrape of Elmet’s whittling knife, and – the insight both surprises and deepens his feelings of guilt – Alt Clut’s conversation, even though the prospect of the last usually hastens his steps come morning.  
  
The uneasiness of his rest could be entirely to blame, but Gwynedd fears that his disquiet might run a little deeper. For all that he loves his brothers, and misses them fiercely whilst they are apart, he is so used to keeping his own company most days that the enormity of the change when they are together is sometimes overwhelming.  
  
Yet that’s a malady which is easily remedied.  
  
He snatches up some bread from the kitchens, still warm from the oven, and sets out for the place he always retreats to whenever he is in need of some solitude. Even Alt Clut doesn’t know of it, not because Gwynedd has ever taken any particular pains to keep it secret, but simply because it is so well-concealed naturally that it is easy to overlook despite being scarce more than five leagues walk away from the outermost walls of Gwynedd’s hold.  
  
It’s naught but a small clearing in the forest encircling a shallow depression eaten into the earth by the fast-flowing stream that runs through it, but he cherishes the tranquillity he finds there, hidden away from his everyday concerns for a while.  
  
The place is so secluded that, although the sound of footfalls reaches his ear as he approaches it, it never once crosses his mind that they could be caused by aught but some animal or other, no matter that their rhythm conforms to the pace of no four-legged creature he knows.  
  
Thus when he clears the tree line and sees Pictland running through his sword drills ahead of him, the fact that he is not alone in the knowing of this place comes as a far greater shock than the identity of his fellow interloper to it.  
  
So great is his surprise, indeed, that he both notices and mourns that the other kingdom’s injuries seem to have robbed him of some of the grace he normally demonstrates with a blade in his hand long before he becomes aware that Pictland is stripped to the waist.  
  
He turns away so quickly once that realisation strikes that he slips on the dew-damp grass, and loses his footing. Though he shoots out his hands behind him in an effort to break his fall, he still lands heavily enough that the impact startles a couple of birds into taking from the undergrowth behind him.  
  
They caw indignantly as they fly past him, a noise that serves to attract Pictland’s attention where the thump of Gwynedd’s arse hitting the ground did not. He freezes, arm outstretched mid-strike, and his eyes grow wide and round as he looks towards Gwynedd.  
  
Flustered, Gwynedd drops his own eyes, but they soon catch on the broad expanse of Pictland’s chest, then chase after the flush that blossoms there as it spreads down across the taut planes of his flat stomach. Before it can reach the waistband of Pictland’s truis, Gwynedd screws his eyelids shut, because he cannot bear the thought of being caught looking where he has no right to. Pictland has ever guarded the privacy of his flesh just as scrupulously as the privacy of his thoughts, and Gwynedd cannot help but feel it is an unforgivable violation of his trust to take advantage of having caught him unawares in order to try and circumvent that.  
  
For a moment, nothing fills the air but the harsh sound of their breathing, but then, all of a sudden, he can hear Pictland’s feet start to move again, ponderous once more now that he no longer plays at fighting.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Pictland says, the words accompanied by a rustle of fabric that suggests he has retrieved his léine from wherever he had cast it off to. “I didn’t realise that anyone ever had cause to come here. I just wanted a quiet spot to train, and I’d noticed this place when I explored your lands the last time you played host to me. I thought…” His voice roughens until it becomes little more than a growl and then stops. After clearing his throat with a sharp cough, he adds another, “I’m sorry.”  
  
Gwynedd is mortified that Pictland should believe he was in any way trespassing where he had no right to, These may be Gwynedd’s lands, but he does not own them, and Pictland should feel just as free to make use of any part of them as he wishes whenever he accepts Gwynedd’s hospitality.  
  
“It’s all right,” Gwynedd swiftly reassures him. “I just awoke sore of head and thought spending some time here might help to ease it, because –“  
  
“It’s such a quiet spot,” Pictland finishes for him, sounding rueful. “And I’ve robbed you of the peace you hoped to find. I should leave.”  
  
“No, please don’t!” Gwynedd cries out, horrified that he might be forcing Pictland to curtail his sword play; one of the few things which Gwynedd knows for certain brings the other kingdom pleasure. “I shouldn’t be running away from my duties to my guests, in any case. You stay; I’ll go.”  
  
For the first time in their acquaintance, Pictland chuckles a little, and Gwynedd curses the impulse that kept him from looking upon the other kingdom in the first place. He would like to have witnessed such a thing, and seen for himself if the hard lines of Pictland’s face are softened with laughter, as he’d often imagined they must be.  
  
“It seems we’re at an impasse,” Pictland says. “Perhaps we should draw straws for it. Or perhaps…”  
  
He lapses into silence again, and it proves to be such a lengthy one that Gwynedd eventually grows emboldened enough to risk opening his eyes because he begins to worry that something untoward might have happened to prevent the other kingdom from speaking.  
  
Pictland’s expression is pensive, his thick brows drawn down so low that his warm brown eyes look almost black beneath the shadows they cast, and his colour is still a trifle high, but he looks otherwise well.  
  
Though he has put on his léine again, his brat is simply draped around his shoulders, and his feet, inexplicably, are bare. Although they are long, they are remarkably narrow for someone of his heft; almost elegant-looking.  
  
“Perhaps what?” Gwynedd prompts, hoping that whatever Pictland has to say will serve to distract him from his current compulsion to fix his gaze on whatever piece of unclothed skin happens to enter his view. Judging by the way Pictland is curling his toes so that they bury down into the leaf mulch below, he has perceived where Gwynedd’s attention has wandered to, and is embarrassed by the focus of it.  
  
“I’ve always found that there is little better to ease aches and pains of all kinds than exercise,” Pictland says, the words tumbling from his lips so rapidly that they’re almost unintelligible. “I was planning on going for a walk once I finished my practice anyway, perhaps you’d like to accompany me now?”  
  
Gwynedd cannot recall another occasion when Pictland has been the one to suggest that they might pass more time together, and he is so charmed by the offer that he forgets both his own fatigue and his earlier wish for solitude.  
  
“It would be my pleasure,” he says, scrambling to his feet once more.


End file.
